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Ask HN: Why doesn't YouTube have a competitor?

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Re: Ask HN: Why doesn't YouTube have a competitor?

#91

Post by ballenf »

LegitShady wrote: post #42
tw04 wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>or porn I'm quite confident you'll find Mindgeek/Pornhub has a Youtube-esque unassailable position in that market segment. Unless you're catering to illegal content, but I think you'll find that market isn't the greatest for building a profitable business on.

my guess is pornhub has been on steep decline since most of their payment processing methods has been removed. I will admit I haven't checked back but last I checked they were essentially crypto only.

Don't forget user surveillance and data mining. Probably a profitable market for them to sell user profiles.

Re: Ask HN: Why doesn't YouTube have a competitor?

#92

Post by jimmaswell »

ageitgey wrote: post #47

YouTube is a huge technical achievement that would require billions of dollars to replicate: 1. It consumes nearly unlimited bandwidth. 2. It consumes nearly unlimited CPU for transcoding and serving media at different bitrates. 3. It consumes massive resources to police, from user moderation to appeasing content owners by building systems and databases like ContentID, etc. 4. It generates endless PR and legal headac…

Sounds like PornHub or similar could easily branch into providing a separate service for general videos if they wanted. They already have all this stuff down for the most part.

Re: Ask HN: Why doesn't YouTube have a competitor?

#93

Post by Jiro »

>Apart from network effect, and Google's Ad Monopoly, what does YT have that has made it a clear winner in this field? What would a competitor need to take on them?

Apart from the sanitation, the medicine, education, wine, public order, irrigation, roads, a fresh water system, and public health, what have the Romans ever done for us?

Re: Ask HN: Why doesn't YouTube have a competitor?

#94

Post by jimbokun »

formerly_proven wrote: post #17
1cvmask wrote: post #2

There is a new "free speech" alternative called Rumble emerging. Rumble for now promises Not to become a censorship platform like YouTube is now currently. https://rumble.com/ Even though some high profile civil libertarian and free speech advocates like Glenn Greenwald and Zaid Jilani have chosen Rumble as home, YouTube is still lights years ahead. But if they continue to censor, alternative free speech platform wil…

The problem with media platforms that market themselves as pro-free-speech is that they attract alt-right content - and their hyper-toxic followers - like a warm pile of shit attracts flies, even if that's not the intent of the platform operators.

It does...

...but at the same time anyone who deviates from progressive orthodoxy in any way will be labeled alt-right.

So in addition to the hyper-toxic folks, you will get people looking for a platform allowing debate and a broad range of ideas.

Re: Ask HN: Why doesn't YouTube have a competitor?

#95

Post by kypro »

anderspitman wrote: post #75

I don't think we'll see a real competitor to YouTube until someone manages to decouple hosting from discovery. No startup can compete with free unlimited video hosting. But it would be relatively easy to make a better discovery algorithm. The problem is the network effects moat. But I think if you started in a specific community (say tech talks or ASMR) it might work.

YouTube used to have a 10 minute video limit. While I like that 1,2 or even 3 hour podcasts can now be uploaded in a single YouTube video, other than that I honestly probably wouldn't even notice if suddenly every video on YouTube was under 10 minutes. Same with things like full-HD / 4k support. I'm fine with 720p 99% of the time. In most cases I suspect a video hosting service with a 10 minute video limit and a 420p / 720p resolution would suffice just fine.

IMO what YouTube alternatives should focus on is being unique and different from YouTube in someway -- at least initially. Maybe focus on short-form video and build algorithms and moderation tools that ensure users are only served extremely high quality videos. Perhaps a video service providing something like a daily digest of the best daily / weekly videos that match your preferences could work.

As the platform grows it could then increase the allowed video length and expand into a more general video hosting service like YouTube. We see this trend in social media all the time, Facebook has a lot of competitors, but non of them are competing directly with Facebook. They're all doing something a little different and a little better than Facebook.

Re: Ask HN: Why doesn't YouTube have a competitor?

#96

Post by 2Gkashmiri »

mattl wrote: post #82
2Gkashmiri wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

tilvids.com check it and give your opinion

I noticed no subtitles or captions on videos and no obvious way to turn them on. I was able to watch the same videos on YouTube with closed captions but on my TV instead of my phone.

subtitles have to be added the video. youtube imo does this automatically for some videos but i am not sure

https://framatube.org/w/217eefeb-883d-45be-b7fc-a788ad8507d3

here is a good video intro to peertube which has subtitles

Re: Ask HN: Why doesn't YouTube have a competitor?

#98

Post by Zanni »

jimmaswell wrote: post #92
ageitgey wrote: post #47

YouTube is a huge technical achievement that would require billions of dollars to replicate: 1. It consumes nearly unlimited bandwidth. 2. It consumes nearly unlimited CPU for transcoding and serving media at different bitrates. 3. It consumes massive resources to police, from user moderation to appeasing content owners by building systems and databases like ContentID, etc. 4. It generates endless PR and legal headac…

Sounds like PornHub or similar could easily branch into providing a separate service for general videos if they wanted. They already have all this stuff down for the most part.

They may not have to even offer a separate service. There's a math tutor sharing his lessons on PornHub already: https://www.vice.com/en/article/dyp8wa/math-tutor-video-less...

Re: Ask HN: Why doesn't YouTube have a competitor?

#99

Post by solox3 »

formerly_proven wrote: post #17
1cvmask wrote: post #2

There is a new "free speech" alternative called Rumble emerging. Rumble for now promises Not to become a censorship platform like YouTube is now currently. https://rumble.com/ Even though some high profile civil libertarian and free speech advocates like Glenn Greenwald and Zaid Jilani have chosen Rumble as home, YouTube is still lights years ahead. But if they continue to censor, alternative free speech platform wil…

The problem with media platforms that market themselves as pro-free-speech is that they attract alt-right content - and their hyper-toxic followers - like a warm pile of shit attracts flies, even if that's not the intent of the platform operators.

Absolutely. I was one of the early members of voat.co (a reddit clone in C#), and never really used it due to a lack of content. Fast forward a few years, and that place became a portal to an alternate universe where Hitler won, slavery is taken for granted, and (he who must not be named) is the American emperor.

The stimulating nature of extremism makes it really hard for a new platform to be pro-"sensible free speech".

Re: Ask HN: Why doesn't YouTube have a competitor?

#100

Post by zokier »

tw04 wrote: post #38
WJW wrote: post #14

> Apart from network effect, and Google's Ad Monopoly This is like asking "why don't we live on the moon except that there is no atmosphere there and it's pretty far away?". Those two reasons are the main reasons Youtube is the clear winner in its field, saying "apart from that" does not make a lot of sense. If you'd want to start a competitor to take on Youtube, you either need to focus on a tiny niche not well serv…

>or porn I'm quite confident you'll find Mindgeek/Pornhub has a Youtube-esque unassailable position in that market segment. Unless you're catering to illegal content, but I think you'll find that market isn't the greatest for building a profitable business on.

Isn't OnlyFans quite strong competitor to Pornhub?
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